Ohio man's killing last year still a mystery

CINCINNATI — More than a year ago, 65-year-old Paul Leiter was in his southwestern Ohio home when police say someone outside his window trained a gun on him and shot him dead.
His killing is still unsolved.
Investigators have worked the case every day since Leiter’s wife found him dead in a chair the morning of Feb. 12, 2013, in their Miami Township home in suburban Cincinnati, said Sgt. Al Fatute, lead investigator on the case.
Fatute told The Cincinnati Enquirer that the department is focused on potential leads of persons of interest but declined to elaborate.
“We’ve been careful not to rush this,” Fatute said. “We absolutely want to get it right.”
Fatute said that after a year of investigation, police can’t find a single person who said one negative thing about Leiter.
“From what we’ve learned about Paul, he was just a very decent human being who never had an enemy in the world,” Fatute said. “He’s the last person who would ever deserve this, or who you would expect this to happen to.
“We feel like we owe it to him to get it right.”
Leiter was killed on the evening of Feb. 11, 2013. Police say someone outside his house fired multiple times through a rear window but have declined to say how many times Leiter was shot or where he was hit.
His wife, who said she went to bed early that night, said she heard something around 8 p.m. but thought her husband was working on some plumbing and went back to sleep. She found her husband’s body in the morning.
Neighbors said they saw a suspicious man in the neighborhood before the shooting but had few details. Police released a sketch of the man but it produced no leads.
Police said they’ve found no evidence the killing was connected to Leiter’s wife’s job.
Ann Abele, who was married to Leiter for 18 years, was working as a compliance specialist who investigated complaints for the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy.
Abele declined to comment.
Leiter lived much of his life in his native Ashland in northeastern Ohio. After graduating from high school in 1965, Leiter enlisted in the Marine Corps and did a tour in Vietnam, said his brother-in-law, Rick Johnson.
Leiter and his wife moved to Miami Township in 2003 to be closer to her work. Leiter had retired the year before from his job at a cell phone company.
In 2007, Leiter fulfilled his dream of bicycling across the United States.
Over the years, Leiter went on service trips, including hurricane relief work in Mississippi.
“He touched a lot of lives and was liked by a lot of people,” Fatute said. “I think everyone’s sort of at a loss why someone would want to (kill him).”